O Tannebaum, O Hanukkuh

Today was the last work day for the office before Christmas, so I invited the staff over to the house at 3 pm "for a little Christmas cheer." In anticipation, I made some egg nog yesterday. Here's my recipe:

8 eggs

2 pints half and half

1 cup sugar

1 cup liquor (I used half bourbon and half rum)

Fresh ground nutmeg

First separate eggs, setting whites aside in the fridge. With a hand mixer, whip yolks until they are lighter in color and thicker. Then gradually add the liquor while still running the mixer. Fyi, bourbon, rum and brandy all work, and I imagine whiskeys other than Scotch all would. I lean toward bourbon, but it's too strong a taste for many.

After all the booze is in, gradually add the sugar. When all that is in, add half and half. 

Now get your egg whites. Important! Clean your mixer blades well and dry them, before whipping the whites. You want to get them mostly stiff, but no need to go all the way. Some will add a little salt to dry them a little; I dont.

When you have the whites as you like them, now you gently fold them into the other ingredients. I use a spatula for this. Top it all with fresh nutmeg. I like a lot of it.

You can serve it now, but it's better, I think, to chill it for a few hours. I made mine around 3 yesterday, so that was a whole day. I covered the bowl.

The staff loved it! 

So I got everyone over, and with the fire going and some music playing via Pandora, I passed out the song sheets, and we sang O Tannenbaum. I took the first verse in German, then all joined in with the English. After this, I turned unmuted the TV and we enjoyed some Advent music. 

But no! Pandora didn't have an "Advent" channel, so we went with the Hanukkah channel!

We polished off the nog, and everyone left a bit ago. 

Here's the tree: